Saturday, October 30

I was concerned that Paris Hilton has never appeared in this blog and, let's face it, a blog that doesn't have a post about this woman is not worth reading.

So here she is! She love presents, pink, chocolate, animals... and puppies and bought many along the years! You can see the beautiful Gucci or Louis Vuitton(?) bag she bought to incarcerate the dog she just bought.

Buying is the verb of this woman an activity she loves and practice very often.

You can notice that all she listed are things and stuffs that are consumable. Friends? Yes, they are supposed to be priceless but some people say that everybody has a price and she said "I love animals better than people." And she like to meet her friends to gossip.

I wonder what happens at a meeting when one of the friends is not there.

Sunday, October 24

"Robert Ballagh is an Irish artist born in Dublin. He graduated from the Dublin Institute of Technology. He is both a painter and designer. His painting style was strongly influenced by pop art and his paintings are often playful and didactic. He began with an apprenticeship to the painter Michael Farrell and taught himself the rest."

Friday, October 22

Once there was this kid who
Got into an accident and couldn't come to school
But when he finally came back
His hair had turned from black into bright white
He said that it was from when
The car had smashed so hard
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

Once there was this girl who
Wouldn't go and change with the girls in the change room
But when they finally made her
They saw birthmarks all over her body
She couldn't quite explain it
They'd always just been there
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

But both girl and boy were glad
'Cause one kid had it worse than that '
Cause then there was this boy whose
Parents made him come directly home right after school
And when they went to their church
They shook and lurched all over the church floor
He couldn't quite explain it
They'd always just gone there
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

The Black Cat is one of the most famous of Poe's short stories and you can read, or reread, it here.

At this site you can find the summary and some aspects of the story in a very informal way.

This is the text about it's Gothic characteristics:

The Black Cat as Gothic Literature

by Caleb Guard

"One of Edgar Allan Poe's most famously read and celebrated stories is "The Black Cat." Like most of his other stories, "The Black Cat" follows the Gothic convention of literature, a style that explores humanity's fear and fascination with the unknown. Although it originated in Germany, it was revived in the 1700's. Gothic literature investigates man's emotions, particularly fear, in the face of forces we cannot comprehend. Typical motifs of this type include darkness, horrid figures, grotesque imagery, illusion, and spaces. Stories of this sort strip us of our understanding, and sensationalize us, giving us a thrilling sense of terror that we enjoy.

Although Perverseness is the theme of Poe's story, he uses the feeling of guilt as a kind of fear. By detailing the decline in the main character's mental state throughout the story, Poe demonstrates the loss of control over one's own behavior and the horrifying effects, touching on the fear of one's own self as fear of the unknown. The narrator beings the tail claiming to be perfectly sane, but over time his account shows that he indeed has a spirit of perverseness that surprises even himself. Through a series of violent acts, he brings about his own destruction. The elements of horror in this tale are very apparent.

One primary element of gothic literature is the superstitious blurring of the line between the normal and the fantastic. Poe accomplishes this in a number of ways. The narrator, for example, is unreliable, being insane. In his account, he claims that the exact shape of a cat hanging on a noose was imprinted on a wall in the ruins of his old home. Although he tries to explain it naturally, it seems that there may be supernatural elements at work. The changing shape of the gallows on the new cat's white spot have similar effects. The narrator's wife even had a suspicion of black cats.

Revenants and haunts from the dead are often prevalent in Gothic literature. In the story, the second cat the narrator happens upon is a double of the first, and represents a revenant or ghost of the first-the one he killed. When the narrator kills his wife and walls her up, he attributes the scream from inside to the cat, although he describes it as sounding very human, as if his wife's ghost had screamed.

Gothic architecture plays with open spaces and depicts the decay and gnarling of human creations. Likewise, Poe explores a lot of psychological space in his story, and takes the reader on an emotional tour through the mind of a madman until reaching his final emotional breakdown and mental defeat. Poe's narrator is so perverse that his mind eventually becomes so twisted it is inhumane. The narrator could almost be described as a Byronic hero, being a flawed and tragic protagonist who is a danger to himself and others. Such a character is again typical of the old Gothic romances.

As Gothic movement was in part a rejection of neoclassical rationalism, so does Poe defy all logical explanation of the events in his story, his narrator being completely vexed by his own uncontrollable actions. The destruction of his house, and the eerie basement of his new one are representatives of usual structural motifs of Gothic variety. He explores perverseness as a thematic gateway to inner, inexplicable terror. "Terror is not of Germany," Poe once said, "but of the soul." Thus he revitalized in Victorian America a genre that had all but lost popularity until his time."

This is Cezanne's, "the father of modern art", studio in Aix en Provence where he spent most of his time.
" A long shelf is hung on the western wall...
A table, a drawer, a short ladder, a high easel,
a potbellied store, a sofa, a few chairs, the items that posed for his "still life",
are basically the only furniture present in the closed world of Cézanne.
a few locally decorated vases, a ginger jar and an olive pot,
a fruit bowl, a plate, a glass, a bottle of rum, three skulls, a little "plaster cupid" by Francois Dusquenoy are still today the famous models of the painter."
You can find more here.

Tuesday, October 19

"Me attempting to do 24 different accents from my own country and from other countries around the world. Hopefully I got most of them right but I may have made mistakes and I can do some better than others. However, I made this video for my friends because I promised them I would do an accent video. I mean no offence to anyone and please don't be upset if I have not included your specific accent or got it wrong."

This boy is really talented! I'm sure you will like it. He also do French, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and other accents. Funny and witty!

Photo: VOA Photo - N. Colombant 20 March 2010

Chicago Indymedia has learned that on Friday, November 3 local music and art afficianado and peace advocate Malachi Ritscher burned himself to death on the side of the Kennedy Expressway near downtown Chicago during the morning rush hour. Near Malachi's remains, police found a camcorder with videotape inside and a homemade sign that read "Thou Shalt Not Kill.* "

Wednesday, October 13

Derain started working with Matisse in 1904 and following the master his palette became more vivid. The light of Collioure, south of France, has also affected the painter but his design is still schematic.
In 1905 he painted Matisse's portrait which was turned into a stained-glass in 1993 by Tony Banfield.
It is amazing how Banfield reproduces the same colors of Derain's painting. It must be interesting to see how the colors of the glasses change according to the light. during the day.